Perched Boulders on a ridge-side ledge at Eagle Mountain in Milton, Vermont. Photo by Mike Luoma.

A Machu Picchu in Vermont?

Exploring A Possible Mountaintop Discovery in Northeastern North America

Ladies and Gentlemen, Hiram Bingham the Third, 1916. Public Domain. Harris & Ewing, photographer. Source: Library of Congress.

Hiram Bingham, the Third!

Fresh home from first exploring Eagle Mountain in Milton, Vermont, I looked up Bingham.

Actually, I didn’t know yet exactly who he was. I was looking up what he did. For Hiram Bingham revealed famed Machu Picchu to the world back in 1911.

Why would I wonder who found Machu Picchu?

Well…

We’re inclined to believe it takes bushwhacking through the jungles of Southern Peru to discover amazing, undiscovered ancient wonders on mountain tops. But what if such a wonder sits here in our midst in North America, undiscovered?

Eagle Mountain on Vermont LIDAR. Map generated by the author with the Vermont Interactive Map Viewer at Maps.Vermont.Gov, provided by the Vermont Center for Geographic Information.

A Machu Picchu in Vermont?

The remains of the past are often hidden in plain sight all around us. We don’t see them. Our minds tend to disregard the unusual, and cultural blindness renders much invisible.